Finally got round to booking the Speed in for service of the Ohlins shock as it's a 7 year old bike, it had new fork seals and oil b4 I picked it up a year ago. Picked a crap day, but as it was about a 2 week wait for an appointment I decided to ride over in the rain! Made the mistake of putting phone in outside pocket, which got wet and died, which I only found out when I took it out once I got to Braintree, so had no directions. So after another hour I found them. Used FTR Suspension in Beazley End, Braintree in north Essex. All went well, all service items replaced and a fresh fill of Ohlins 5wt oil and regassed. Didn't need to have much adjusted as I had sorted out settings myself, ignoring the owners manual and winding all the preload off, which gave me the sag I was after. As it happens they only put half a turn back on the rear spring and left the fronts on 7 turns in. This gave me 38mm sag front and rear. I had put settings to standard when I first got the bike, but then went to the comfort settings which was a lot better for me, I weigh 12st 7lbs. James suggested going back to the standard settings, and going in 1 more click on the front compression damping. I'll see how it feels after some dry rides. so my setting are: Front Sag = 38mm Preload = 7 turns in Comp = 14 clicks out Rebound = 10 clicks out Rear Free sag = 12mm Rider sag = 38mm Preload = half turn in from fully out Comp = 17 clicks out Rebound = 10 clicks out Cost service including oil £85 remove and refit shock £40 consumable internals £17.40 VAT £28.88 Total £173.28
Looks good, but can’t help noticing the rebound settings only 10 clicks out. That’s slower rebounding than the track setting. How does it feel on bumpy roads?
no. its faster Steve, 2 clicks further out = less damping. Roads were shit so cant ride it properly, I think I prefer the comfort setting as that what I changed to a few months ago, but I'll run with their suggested setting for a few rides and see how I fell.
Sorry, had a grey moment . I have my rebound at 14 and feels pretty good. I’ll have to try a little slower and see what I think.
Be interesting to see if you stick with it. I want to have a go at setting up my suspension, but am a little confused over getting the sag number. I understand what it is and how to set it up, but keep seeing different figures e.g. RIDE magazine said for most sports tourers and nakeds 10-15mm rear and 25 at the front, many others state 30-40mm and some a % of total travel available?? Yours is obviously within the 30-40mm range or is this the figure from % total lol? I'm in the same boat that my bike (new RS) is too firm on the rough country lanes but great on good surfaces, so will be looking to set up more on the comfort side of things. It's my first speedy and so any ideas from my fellow owners appreciated, 6ft, 17st.
They set rider sag at 38mm front and rear with me sat on the bike, that’s rider sag. Then need to check you have some free sag which is about 10-12mm. If you can’t get those numbers together then you would need spring change. With the factory set sag, my bike had no free sag on the rear, the front with standard 7 turns in was about right. As a guide the bike needs to be sitting in 1/3 of its travel with you sat on bike, this allows travel into dips, otherwise wheel would top out and lift off the road. Just checked the set up card, they set rear free sag at 12mm on the rear, not showing what the front was but should be about the same.
Cheers Bryan, makes sense now. I'll have a go next weekend if I can teach my mrs how to use a tape measure
Stick a tiewrap round one of you fork lowers too, this will show you how much of your travel you are using, and you can increase/decrease preload as needed. Plus you can get her to slide up up when you are sitting on the bike, get off carefully and will show static sag.
I thought static sag was the amount of travel from suspension fully extended to when weight’s on the wheels without a rider on.
I mixed it up a bit there, you can use it to measure both static and rider sag, slide it up to dust seal then unweight front to measure static, or with you sat on it for rider sag. But net best way to do rider as you could compress forks a bit getting off. There are a few videos on YouTube by Dave Moss showing how to measure and set sag.
